Inciweb, Inciwhat?

Our government has a way with acronyms, and broken URLs.

.gov broken links

It always amazes me that the most link repairs I tackle on Total Escape is predominantly for the dot gov web links. USFS has a fondness for the PDF pages w/ Alerts & Notices being almost cryptic. Outdated, old search features rarely produce what you are really looking for. Instead you get some long document from a meeting a decade ago.

The US Forest Service has changed their URL structure at least half a dozen times since they came online, back in 2000. No need for redirects, or better forethought, old broken links are found all the time within the government managed web.

wildfire info

Incident Web
Incident Information System
INCIweb for short

You would think that something as serious as wildfire information and maps would be a high priority, but the web site responsible for tracking individual fires - could not decide on a stable web address. The URL has changed a few times over the past decade; it was a .org and now is a .gov

http://www.inciweb.org/state/5/ (old)
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/state/5/ (new)

Inciweb is the site to check for current, up-to-date wildfire data, for fires occurring on federally managed lands: National Parks, National Forest and BLM

Sadly, Inciweb does not keep the individual fire information online very long, so if you are searching for a specific wildfire from 2012 or 2008, sorry! They have already removed it and you will find a broken link (404 page). 

Thank goodness Wikipedia does a real decent job rebuilding wildfire data lists, but many reference links listed at the base of their pages, are often directed to broken pages on Inciweb.  

Additional links on wildland fire:

ArcGIS
https://mediaprogram.maps.arcgis.com

Cal FIRE
https://www.fire.ca.gov 

NIFC - National Interagency Fire Center
https://www.nifc.gov   

USDA FIRE Information
https://www.fs.usda.gov/science-technology/fire/information 

WILDFIRE SMOKE
https://fire.airnow.gov/

WIND MAP
http://hint.fm/wind/